Persistance and Tenacity, requires a new chapter, a new beginning....

Monday, June 14, 2010

I'll sell you that $15,000 study for half price: undercutting Caldwell, Flores and Winters

At our mid May special meeting at the Kern Valley Healthcare District, we got to meet up again with, Abel, the bond consultant from Caldwell Flores and Winters.

Though I had spoken to our CEO, Tim McGlew, about the use of CFW for Tim and Chet's "big plan" to get the community to bail out the hospital and pay off an old debt to their revenue bondholders, then at a meeting he had told me they were going to consider using another company.

But that didn't happen and then McGlew makes an about face at the special meeting and told me and my camera about a contract, a contract with CFW. Last I knew we had no "obligations."

Then Abel after cluing the board in on how to write the bond on the voting ballot, the password there is it's a lease, and people know leases are bad, and buying things are good, has asked the board for $15,000 to do another survey like they did when they were here in 2006 (and on I guess)

I have the survey which has already been paid for and the things the community told the hospital it wanted: guess what? They never got. I'll sell it back to the hospital for oh, maybe, $7,500. That's half of what CFW wants to do it over again.

So, this is how we spend money and this is partially why we are in default.




Now, I wondered, how did Abel get back to KVHD after the bond, Measure M, (malfeasance) didn't quite pass in 2006. And as some of you who volunteered in the community and who have now abandoned the hospital might remember that there was much confusion regarding the help the bond company gave us.
So, to see them stroll right back in had me curious.
Abel, CFW
Well, it seems this can be traced back to Bob Jamison and his construction committee. Well, it wasn't a "real" committee I'm told, they didn't take minutes, maybe ad hoc like, or a lot of contract recruiting. Jamison wants the bond, he's quiet now, but he wants the bond and the taxes and to keep CFW. His committee kept those good contractual relations with CFW as Jamison believed he was going to have to charge in and rebuild the hospital with his bond he could likely sell on the radio. Another board member surprisingly suggested such a thing.
Jamison's concerns were about the seismic laws requiring hospitals to upgrade. He couldn't think ahead far enough to realize that the government was never going to be able to enforce this onto all the hospital's in earthquake zones as there wouldn't even be enough contractors to do them all in the same year.
And OSHPD made that happen when they figured it out too.
So, Jamison might want to take some time before the 2012 election to study up on how specialized and technical hospital construction really can be. It's not something to take lightly.
And next time we use contractors, we might want to make sure they get insured, and the jobs are completed.
As Abel spelled out the plan for keeping the community from knowing "exactly" what the bond monies would go for none of the board members objected. Not Tim or Chet or anybody, except one audience member. And she said straight and sharp: "we don't like to be lied to."
When Abel and Chet assuaged a room full of KVHD skeptics saying that the GOB money could strictly only be used for things within the parameters of which is written and voted in by the community.
I alerted the unknowing, how did Pam Ott get her hands in the basket of bond money at Sierra Kings in Reedley. The chairwoman, Victoria Alwin, asked for more information on how often that happens (does she mean how often do they catch it?) and was told by Abel he's never seen it happen.
I reiterated that Ott found a way. One board member wasn't so convinced, as he asked if she was convicted. I said it just happened last week. But I suggested that he talk to his new management company coming in this week to take a good look at what Chet Beedle has been doing, HFS, as they were the ones who had to go to bankrupt Ott's hospital and now they're here.
I excitedly told everyone I can't wait to see what they find here.
Ott kept all of that information from her board of directors at Sierra Kings District Hospital, as the ship was sinking. She took bond money it seems to pay some payroll and got in some other hot water not paying a pension plan overseen by the IRS.
I'll make sure to find out if criminal charges are forthcoming. But it doesn't matter she sunk a hospital, kept a board in the dark, and that's all after she did what she did here. And she had no credentials. Wow. (I think she has credentials now though, you have to if you can totally bust two hospitals in less than a decade)
Abel gave me the biggest laugh of the meeting when he assured me that the board of directors would be overseeing the monies on the bond. And the community too. I'm still laughing.
But the lying is deeper and deeper, and deception runs from the KRV to Sacramento...Hang in there, I'll tell the story, but I can't quite do it yet...

No comments:

Post a Comment